AutoSPInstaller: Preparing the Base Media

by Tobias Lekman, 15 August, 2012

This post is part of a series covering how to configure and run AutoSPInstaller, a set of scripts that can be used to automatically install SharePoint. In this post, we will look at the second step: preparing the base media that will be used to install SharePoint.

Update: This post has been running for years and the AutoSPInstaller team now has an official site with guides, Q&A and an automated, browser-based AutoSPInstaller GUI . You can find it at http://autospinstaller.com.

Extract the SharePoint media locally

We must create a new installation media by using the files and packages mentioned above. I will combine these on my local drive and copy these later to a network location or external drive for safe-keeping.

Extract the latest release of AutoSPInstaller from CodePlex into the local folder c:\SP. Now, either download the SharePoint ISO from MSDN subscriber downloads or copy them from the installation media. I extract the files from my ISO into the folder c:\SP\SharePoint using 7-zip.

Enabling Installation on Windows 7 for SharePoint 2010

For SharePoint 2010, the server will not install on Windows client machines unless you tweak the installation files. This is obviously only done for development machines. AutoSPInstaller is already prepared to enable client installs as the property <Setting Id="AllowWindowsClientInstall" Value="True"/> is present in the c:\SP\AutoSPInstaller\config file.

Download Pre-Requisite Files

The SharePoint installer will download pre-prequisite files from the internet prior to installation. Not only does this take a long time but most servers I install are behind a firewall and do not allow direct access to the internet.Run Download-All SP2010 Prereqs.ps1 and add these files to

c:\SP\SharePoint\PrerequisiteInstallerFiles

Office Web Apps

This is only applicable to SharePoint 2010 installations. OWA is installed on a separate server within SharePoint 2013 farms.

Adobe PDF Files

Place the .zip (or the extracted .msi) in the c:\SP\PDF folder along with the icpdf.gif, and AutoSPInstaller can automatically install them in order to be able to index PDF files and display the icon properly in SharePoint search results, document libraries, etc.

Slipstreaming Service Packs and Hotfixes

Warning!

There is currently an open issue where slipstreaming of cumulative updates for SharePoint 2010 from August 2012 and onwards will fail. If you are planning on installing this CU or later, then you must apply this manually afterwards.

Some media have Service Pack already added. If not, you should “slipstream” it in, which means extracting the update files and adding them to the media. This makes SharePoint automatically apply the updates during the base installation.

After you have downloaded Service Pack 1, open a command prompt and run the following command:

If needed, slipstream the latest/required hotfix by downloading the cumulative update package. Note that you have to slipstream SP1 first, but hotfixes are cumulative after that, i.e. you only have to download the latest one. Extract the contents (for example) as:

Integrating Language Packs

The SharePoint language packs allows the system to automatically detect the user language and switch all standard menus and command texts to that language. To install these, I use the SharePoint Language Pack Downloader from CodePlex

Select “SharePoint Server 2010 Language Pack” and specify the location as “c:\SP\LanguagePacks”. Once downloaded, place the file (as is) inside a folder named after the language/culture. Do not unpack the language pack itself. For example, I name the Swedish language pack “ServerLanguagePack_sv-se.exe” and place it in “c:\SP\LanguagePacks\sv-se”.

Download the service packs for the specific language and extract the file contents inside a subfolder inside each language/culture folder named updates using